


A Change Of Scenery

by Mypinkheadphones



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Boarding School, M/M, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, Teen Angst, can these boys chill, god so much angst, greg is a grumpy child, nathaniel is trying his best, spoiler they discover theyre in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-05-16 19:11:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19324336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mypinkheadphones/pseuds/Mypinkheadphones
Summary: Greg is being sent to prep school and is mad about it. Nathaniel gets a new roommate and is mad about it. Hijinks insue.





	1. Day one

“Bullshit, it's all bullshit.” Greg mutters, kicking the dirt as he marches like a prisoner towards the grand set of doors ahead of him.

Prep school, what was his dad thinking?

You get caught drinking stolen whiskey on the roof one too many times and this is the punishment, apparently.

The grounds outside the main building are immaculate, flowers everywhere. A smell too overwhelmingly happy for Greg's self admittedly mopey state.

The lettering above the archway (of course there's a fucking Greek style archway) claims that this place fosters learning for “the brightest young men on the West Coast.” Makes sense, how else would Greg have gotten in three weeks into the fall semester besides his dad shoving his Junior year SAT scores down the admissions officer’s throat? 

His charm? Not likely. 

His brain is what allows him to do the things he loves, mainly slacking off in class and still passing with all honors, but it couldn’t get him out of this. No matter the arguments Greg made against being sent to this place, (the money, the lack of working-class culture, the fact that he would be the first Serrano in the last thirty years to not graduate with a degree from West Covina Public), his dad insisted.

Said it would teach him to have an “academic work ethic” and “straighten him out” like this place is anything but rich boys snorting lines in the locker room with daddy’s especially heavy credit card...probably.

Greg had only seen boarding schools depicted in movies and exceedingly boring pornos before this, but that's what he assumed it was like, for senior year at least. Parties every weekend, guys hooking up with teachers, it all sounded entertaining, like a soap opera made up of people from his calculus class.

But for now, on this windy Sunday morning, it just looked like douchey jocks in polo shirts playing frisbee golf on the giant stretch of green grass that surrounded him.

Greg sighs before finally just saying fuck it to the idea of making a run for it that keeps playing in the back of his mind (go until reaching the highway, climb into a tree deep in the woods and hide until people stop looking.) and just enter the building, then get set up in his tiny single person room and play video games until it was time for lukewarm pasta for dinner, the perfect first day in his mind.

Upon first entry Greg thinks everything is hideous in a way that somehow forces him to crack a smile and stifle a small laugh, so ugly he can’t help but love it, mauve everywhere, really is there a color more pretentious? The walls and furniture simply covered in gold leaf fleur de lis, a choice clearly not chosen for aesthetics but for showing off how much money the school is willing to blow on the first thing people see, classy.

The few seconds of Greg taking in his surroundings are broken as he notices the older man with a mustache that reminds him of a cowboy staring and smiling in Greg's direction. 

“Um… hi?” Greg says, now fully out of his decor induced trance.

The man smiles and takes a breath before his words start to topple out of his mouth like dominos. “Hello! I’m Darryl Whitefeather! The school’s resident overseer of student welfare! Welcome to Thompson Prep! The leading non-military private school…”

At this point, Greg starts to tune out Darryl’s seemingly endless and excited string of praise for Thompson and starts to wonder how long he could possibly chew this scenery for without somehow spitting it out.

Eventually, after Greg has buttoned and unbuttoned his flannel six times to kill the boredom, they start moving towards the dorms. Across the lawn and through some doors and up some stairs, confused looks from the student body are directed towards the middle-aged staff member completely stacked with the new student’s luggage insists repeatedly that he can handle it as the student points out that it appears he is going to fall over. When the destination of outside room 37 is reached, all of Greg's belongings clatter to the floor, an out of breath staff member crumbling on top.

“So, is this when you give me my key or…?” In this moment there is nothing in the world Greg wants more than peace, quiet and a shitty mattress to nap on.

Darryl stands up, still winded. “You’ll get that from your roommate, along with your student ID.”

Goddamnit, a roommate? Greg feels like this day was designed specifically to piss him off.

“A roommate? I thought I had a single?”

Darryl shakes his head. “Single rooms are first come first serve, high demand for those.” He raises his hand to knock. “But you’ll be okay, this student has been here all four years, top of his class, really good kid. We put him in this half-empty double, then you came along.” 

He plants three hardy knocks on the dark hardwood of the door and Greg can hear a groan and a “one minute” come from the other side. 

“Don’t worry” Darryl pats Greg on the shoulder. “Who doesn’t love new friends?!”

The answer is Greg, he was perfectly happy with the idea of only talking to people when medically or academically necessary until graduation, but clearly, that dream is dead and buried now.

The door creaks open, a boy around Greg's height and age, standing there, currently struggling to slip on a black t-shirt, leaving his abdominals exposed for just seconds long enough for Greg to see and start blushing.

“Darryl, wh-” He pauses, noticing Greg standing there, avoiding eye contact. “Oh! You must be George!”

“Greg, it’s Greg.” For some reason the ground is now absolutely fascinating, tethering the new student’s eyes down to it.

“Oh, sorry man... I’m Nathaniel.” He has one hand rubbing the back of his neck in what seems like embarrassment, and the other outstretched towards his new roommate. 

Greg returns the gesture, taking note of how firm the other boy’s handshake is not daring to let go first. 

“Wow.” Greg says, not sure if he’s trying to be funny or sincere “They say you can tell a lot about a man from his handshake.” 

Nathaniel chuckles. “Well, what do you think holding it for over thirty seconds means?” 

Greg pulls his hand away and cracks an embarrassed smile.

“Okay!” Darryl claps his hands together making the boys jump slightly. “I’m going to leave you two to get acquainted if you boys need anything just let me know!”

And with that he skips off down the hallway.

“You can come in if you want,” Nathaniel says with a friendly smile. 

Greg bends down to pick up his stuff and sees Nathaniel doing the same. “I think I can handle it.” Greg snaps as he shuffles his way into his new home.

"Jeez man, just trying to help." Greg can't tell if he's actually hurt or not.

"Sorry, just... didn't expect to have to deal with people so soon... or at all." Greg says, embarrassed at the first impression he just made.

Nathaniel looks at him with a mix of understanding and pity displayed on his weirdly non-acne ridden face. "I get that, I mean, I've known everyone here for years but that doesn't mean I like it." He smirks.

Greg cracks a small smile as he takes in the sight of his new living space. It's all blue, the shitty plastic covered twin sized mattress on Greg's side of the unreasonably small room, the curtains, the walls, and... what are those? It takes a second to figure it out due to the major cramping of Nathaniel's belongings, but its ribbons, what appears to be at least fifty awards ribbons from wrestling championships.

"Wow." The new student says. "It looks like a gender reveal party threw up in here."

Nathaniel chuckles, "Yeah, this place is pretty, how do I say it?"

"Suffocatingly masculine?" Greg suggests. 

"Something like that." He smiles.

"So, what are you in for?" Greg asks, starting to unpack his suitcase.

"What do you mean?" Nathaniel looks puzzled.

Greg pulls out his old sheets and starts making his bed. "I mean like, what did you do to get sent to the 'leading non-military private school in the midwest'?" He grins, mocking Darryl's excited tone.

Nathaniel grins. "I'm here by choice if you would believe it." 

Greg looks back at his new roommate, scanning him from head to toe. Hair crisply gelled up, teeth whiter than the current Hollywood A-list, jeans that probably cost more than Greg's dad's rent, and of course, boat shoes. "Yeah, I'd believe it."

Nathaniel laughs. "Thanks. So, what are you 'in for'"? He sits down on his bed across from Gregs.

Greg sighs. "Drinking, stealing my cousin Jim's landscaping truck, you know, the usual."

Greg's new roommate looks absolutely tickled at this description of events. "That sounds." Nathaniel says "More fun than game nights with Mr. Whitefeather."

Greg groans. "Is there any kind of party scene here at all?" He fluffs his pillows, then looks at his freshly made bed with pride.

"Only if you know where to look."


	2. Week Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a party, another boy, and Greg really super doesn't care about his roommate no why would he.

“So this is what you meant by ‘causal hang out’ huh?” Greg smirks and ducks his head under the basement ceiling, looking out into the room full of drunken teenagers. 

 

At this point he is convinced that his roommate is crazy, every morning Greg wakes up to the sound of Eye of the Tiger and the image of Nathaniel doing two hundred push-ups. He stopped asking Greg to join him, and become his “gym buddy” after about a week of trying, so they’ve fallen into a sort of routine where Greg crawls out of bed in search of coffee and in return Nathaniel manages to sneak them shitty warm cooking wine from the kitchen by sweet-talking the lunch ladies every once in a while.  
Apart from getting tipsy on what Greg considers “basically just slightly alcoholic water” and talking deep for a few minutes before watching the Princess Bride for the hundredth time, the roommates have mainly kept their distance.  
Greg tutoring the stoners in exchange for cheap vodka behind the dumpsters, and Nathaniel running for student council or whatever rich kid shit Greg tuned out while trying to listen to Inigo Montoya.  
Even still, Greg always seems to keep an eye out for him, he doesn’t know why but he feels kind of responsible for the guy. (Since a drunken talk that led to Nathaniel talking about his family, Greg’s felt like he’s required to make sure everything was good. It’s stupid) but that doesn’t stop him from glancing over in math class to the group of boys his roommate is with. When one of them touches his arm, or leans a little too close, Greg’s stomach flips, (but he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, he’s just his stupid roommate and-) shit… his pencil has ripped through the homework again.

But this party is the biggest one of the year: homecoming, and all of Nathaniel’s buddies had dates or cocaine, so he decided to bring Greg along for some relatively friendly company. As soon as alcohol was mentioned Greg was in, which concerned Nathaniel slightly, but he was just relieved he said yes.

 

“I guess so.” Nathaniel smiles and walks down the stairs to join Greg, standing on the disgusting basement floor that they just walked a half-mile through the woods to get to. 

“Want a drink?” Greg looks at Nathaniel as he starts to walk toward the drink table.

“I think I’m good for now.” Nathaniel says to the space that was at one point his roommate and walks over to the couches of people he’s been trying for years to find likable.

Greg sighs when he notices that Nathaniel didn’t join him but starts to smile as he mixes himself a vodka Redbull in a red solo cup (Greg doesn't know which he hates more: the cliche or the pollution) and starts to sip on it when someone bumps into his arm.

“Oh shit, sorry.” The boy is shorter than Greg but only by a few inches, he’s wearing a muscle tee, his hair is brown, and wow, Greg has never seen biceps that big on a teenager.

“Hey, I don’t think we’ve met.” The boy smiles and reaches his hand out to Greg.

Greg tries to regain his composure, tears his eyes away from the boy’s arms and reaches toward his hand. “Uh, I’m Greg, I’m kinda new here.” 

“White Josh.” He smiles before noticing the confused look on Greg’s face. “Or just Josh, sorry” he takes his hand back to smooth his hair. “thing from my old school, it kinda stuck.” He laughs.

Greg chuckles awkwardly and after a moment of silence notices Josh’s cup is empty and takes that as an easy conversational detour. 

“Want me to pour you a drink?”

“Yeah that would be awesome actually.” Josh hands his cup to Greg and watches as he gets to what seems to be a passionate kind of work for him mixing a drink.  
“So, you’re Nathaniel’s roommate, right?”

Greg doesn’t look up from the table. “Yeah, he’s pretty alright, keeps his side of the room cleaner than mine.” He glances up with a smirk.

“He’s a good guy, people pleaser.” Josh looks down at Greg’s handiwork. “Woah are you literally trying to kill me?” He says as a half-joke.

“You’ll be fine.” Greg gives a final pour and hands over the cup. “Family recipe.”

Josh raises an eyebrow but takes a sip anyways. “Wow, I can feel my liver screaming in real-time.”

Greg beams. “Yeah, that’s the beauty of it.”

His eyes have drifted over to the bundle of cheap leather couches in the far corner where a drunk blonde girl (presumably from their sister school nearby) is playing with the tie that Greg picked out for Nathaniel and leaning on his shoulder.  
He swallows hard and downs his drink, he gestures to his new friend and downs Josh’s drink as well. (Pain, this is pain, and that’s stupid because Greg doesn’t care about his stupid roommate or the stupid blonde girl that probably has a dumb name like Becky who doesn’t know half of what Greg knows or the tie that reminded Greg of springtime or-)

“Dude, are you okay?” Josh looks to the other boy with eyes confused at the sudden tone shift and at the whiskey dripping down Greg’s shirt.

Greg seems to snap out of some kind of trance that’s making his eyes water just slightly. 

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine.” Greg doesn't look at Josh and starts to glance through the drink table before eventually grabbing a half-empty bottle of EverClear and starting to walk away, leaving his new friend concerned and confused.

Greg takes a long swig out of the bottle before starting to walk towards Nathaniel to inform him of his newly planned early exit, Greg stops, his roommate probably doesn’t give a fuck where he goes, they walked here. Fuck it. And he starts up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter wasn't the best, tell me how to improve! I love these boys and I really don't want to get ooc with greg especially

**Author's Note:**

> GIVE ME CRIT I LOVE CRIT


End file.
